


counting

by klickitats



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, First Meetings, Ice Sculptures, The Winter Palace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 19:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5386955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klickitats/pseuds/klickitats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leliana and Josephine meet for the first time, despite Leliana's best efforts to the contrary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	counting

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a prompt fill for Josie/Leliana: "desire." A bit of a companion, I suppose, to  this. 

_Peculiar little thing._ The words from Duchess Mouvier practically bat their eyelashes up at Leliana from the page. _And I mean it literally—she’s quite short. Wears a little gold bauble at the dip of her lower lip. Delightfully Antivan. I’ll introduce you the moment you’re back in court._

Leliana folds the letter in half, and then in half again before tossing it into the fire. As she watches the parchment burn in the flame, she makes a promise to only meet this person for a moment at most. A cold shoulder is in order. Distance.

Mouvier already knows Leliana will be fond of this Lady Montilyet. _Fondness._ It reeks of danger.

So she plans out each moment in perfect measure: Leliana can easily return to court by Wintersend. She will arrive after midnight on the feast day, when everyone is well into their wine. Even the most experienced of the Game’s players will sport reddened cheeks and laughter a tone too loud. The silk bronze and deep blue gown—she will look Orlesian enough to blend in and otherworldly enough to pique interest. And with the velvet slippers, the disguise remains perfect. No one has forgotten Leliana belongs to no country, after all—Fereldan notwithstanding—and she turns it to her advantage.

The evening’s hour will make conversations either very short or very long, so doing business will be easier, and avoiding certain individuals a simple matter.

(It might have felt harsh, once, to write off a newcomer to court so quickly, but Leliana knows everything must be sacrificed in the name of self-preservation. And, truly, she has no desire to meet her.) 

~~~

Marjolaine once said, “I heard an interesting little phrase from the Nevarran nobleman today.”  

Leliana dozed as her mistress combed her hair. “Mm?”

And then Marjolaine rattled off some string of Nevarran, and even the tough, stony language sounded like bird-speak in her mouth.

“What does it mean?” Leliana murmured. The fire was warm, the wine potent, the touch deeply soothing, as rooted in her as pendulum.

Marjolaine answered, “Something like _every step a link._ ”

“In a chain?” Leliana opens one eye. “So morbid.”

“It’s a warning.” Marjolaine’s nails scratched against her scalp. “The more you care for someone, the shorter the chain grows. It’s harder to move. To flee.”

“Should you want to flee, that is.” Both of Leliana’s eyes opened now, and she readjusted the lay of her head on Marjolaine’s thigh.

She could feel her smile. “That is why I never want you far from me, my Leliana, my sweet one.”

It awakens a voice in Leliana, a voice sounding perilously like her own, and the next morning, the voice begins to count.  How many feet away from Marjolaine she can step in the estate before she turns, smiles with eyes as round as opals. How many steps it takes before Leliana herself feels the pull of _gone too far._

This voice says, on occasion, _just one step farther?_ And she does—always one more back before returning, an unfailing raven back to her master’s arm. Time makes the voice grow bolder: _perhaps one street over?_ And then, _to the next district. Why not?_

Eventually it ponders, _one city between you is not so far, I think?_ It asks, _Half of Orlais from her to you? The miles are so many as to be few._

In the years hence, Leliana will know this voice is the part of her that means to survive.

~~~

The feast-day features an ice sculpture of a flock of doves taking wing—Leliana’s eyed it all evening. She intends to watch the dawn rise through the palace’s heavenly windows, see the way the light casts on the ice.

(Unspeakably garish, yes, but still a wonder. Leliana makes time for wonders.) 

Mouvier had approached her nigh on three hours ago, fanning herself and pursing her lips a little. “Nightingale,” she scolded, a smile on her lips. “The lady has gone to bed. How disappointing!” 

Leliana had agreed, with a slight, well-acted pout. And a promise: next time, of course. 

After all, Leliana’s business with Briala took up a grand portion of the evening—a few turns on the dance floor, glasses of wine tinged with blush in a private room as they examined a map, talked of long plans. Then more turns on the dance floor, and even as the celebration still continues, there’s an air of quiet.

“Did you know,” begins a voice from behind her, low and softly accented, “the servants will just let the sculpture melt all over the floor?”

Leliana turns and a little figure, gold and green from head to toe, looks up at the statue with her. “They use it to mop up after the party. I believe it saves them quite a few trips.” She smiles, and candlelight dances at the gold stud beneath her lip.

“Beauty has its uses,” Leliana returns, stomach sinking.

“Have we met?” asks Josephine Montilyet, dark head tilted. A golden comb secured in her hair. “I know of you, of course—but perhaps I could burden you with my acquaintance.”

Leliana extends a hand, and Josephine takes it, confidence in the squeeze of her fingers. “We haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Josephine Montilyet,” she begins, sweeping in a bow that wobbles, just a touch. She presses Leliana’s fingers to her forehead. “Ambassador from Antiva.”

She murmurs, “ _Enchanté,_ Lady Montilyet,” and takes back her hand, clasping them behind her back. Who doesn’t know of her? Even without Mouvier’s letters, Lady Montilyet’s recent smoothing over of the tensions between two houses in Montsimmard without a drop of blood spilled on the parquet floors is the talk of all Orlais, if not everyone with a sovereign to their name in Thedas.

“Lady Montilyet!” A broad, warm voice from a man all trussed in raven feathers. Marquis de Pascal, a roach. When Josephine turns to see who calls her name, Leliana takes the moment to escape with a touch to her arm and a nod. She believes the newcomer can handle Pascal if need be—and better still, she can flit away.

Close—too close for comfort.

~~~

Leliana does not leave, because it would be noticed—even this late, or early. _They spoke and when the Marquis Pascal approached, the Nightingale flew away from the Winter Palace in an instant! How strange._ She does not delight in cleaning up messes, and so she dallies in the gardens for a long while.

Obviously the Lady Montilyet did not retire for the evening, but had a meeting. Under such a pretense with someone of standing, someone who’s rooms were far from the inner ballroom of the palace itself. 

Leliana stops. It cannot be Celene. That is too quick, too far, and would Briala not have told her? Unless Briala keeps her lover’s secrets. But the girl is untried, Ambassador or no. Celene would not place such confidences in someone so green.

_You know how Celene gambles,_ points out a thought in the back of Leliana’s mind. _You know how she likes a risk._

Either way, despite the impossibilities of it all, Leliana will know soon enough. 

And so she returns to the sculpture, when she is sure the coast will be clear, and seats herself upon a well-cushioned bench across from the flock. She settles herself along the velvet curve of the arm. The first dim light of sun peers through the windows, asking to come in.

“I’ve found you,” says a warm voice, and Leliana closes her eyes just once before turning her head, because it is impossible for her, the Nightingale, the shadowy flight of Thedas, to be this dim-witted. “I didn’t think you one for repetition.”

“You’re correct, my lady,” she agrees. “But there’s no better place to watch the sun rise.”

Josephine smiles, and she realizes she will not ask to sit because of how Leliana left. It’s piercing, the softness of this look. The fact that if Leliana wants her to go, she will go. And not simply because of noble propriety, although there’s no way for Leliana to be sure. Such earnestness only lasts so long before being crushed under the boot of the Game. Yet. If she bids her good evening, she will find herself somewhere else.

“Sit, if you’d like,” says Leliana, gently touching the cushion next to her.

“I must apologize,” Josephine begins the moment she perches on the seat. Too quick, giving up too much at the start, but she will allow it. “I did not realize the marquis would occupy me for so long. I had meant to speak with you further.”

“That is the nature of a marquis,” Leliana says. “To occupy, and speak on all matters, and to everyone.”

“I had a feeling you would be familiar.” She tucks a stray loop of soft, black hair behind her ear. What started as an impeccable coif obviously has developed a mind of its own as the night wears on. Leliana is dumbstruck by how charming she finds each loosened lock, each straying hair.

“One must be delicate,” Leliana ventures, “when dealing with certain creatures.”

“Indeed.” Josephine turns her gaze away from the artwork and looks quite serious. “Man, beast, and insect alike.”

It is a risk, such a risk to say it—Josephine may know of Leliana, but she certainly doesn’t know her. And yet, as she quirks an eyebrow, turns back to the sculpture and settles back against the velvet—each movement is precise, confident.

Not planned. Nothing even close to planned. But ingenious. Inspired. A perfect kind of risk.

_No wonder Celene favors you._ It only confirms her suspicions. Instead, she says, “True enough. I hear you keep quite the bestiary.”

“Close,” Josephine says. “A _quiet_ bestiary.”

Leliana can feel a smile beginning to grow on her face but gently pushes it aside, allowing only her eyebrow to rise instead. “You may find Orlais rather loud.”

“Oh, wonderfully so.” Josephine adjusts her long gloves. “Between the chatter and the lutes, who can tell what is music?”

The sun grows a little brighter in the expanse of the hall, the sculpture reflecting pale pink and dim orange, as though the birds glow with fire. Leliana glances to where she stood earlier, the precise place on the stone floor. They are scarcely two meters from the spot. 

_Nine steps_. She thinks of links, of chains, of concentric circles, of going down to the garden only to come back up again in one fell loop. _I have met you for a quarter of an hour,_ she mourns, but the voice, the voice that counts, counts no more.

A hand touches Leliana’s arm, gloved and gold and soft, and she glances at her partner on the velvet bench.  A soft _drip, drip_ on the stone floor stirs her. The beak of the dove closest to the window begins to melt.

“Ah, look,” Josephine murmurs, delight curving the corners of her mouth. But Leliana cannot find eyes for anything else. “How the grandeur washes away.”


End file.
